Gong Chen

Gong Chen

Two years ago, the entrepreneurial landscape at University Park looked markedly different than it does today. There were 28 fewer startup companies in existence, 70 jobs had yet to be created, $1.3 million in revenue had not been generated, five spots in the business incubator in Innovation Park were still vacant, and 18 research projects at Penn State were not commercialized. Ben Franklin Technology Partners helped to change that.

Gong Chen, professor of biology at Penn State, has been appointed as Holder of the Verne M. Willaman Chair in the Life Sciences. The appointment, effective on July 1, was made by the Office of the President of the University, based on the recommendation of the dean, in recognition of Chen's national and international reputation for excellence in research and teaching.

A new method for studying the role of a critical neurotransmitter in disorders such as epilepsy, anxiety, insomnia, depression, schizophrenia, and alcohol addiction could help create safer and more efficient drugs for treating those conditions. A group of scientists led by Gong Chen, associate professor of biology at Penn State, has created the new method by molecularly engineering a model synapse--a structure through which a nerve cell sends signals to another cell.

Gong Chen, an assistant professor of chemistry at Penn State, has been honored with a 2011 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The CAREER award is the most prestigious award given by the NSF in support of junior faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent teaching, and the integration of education and research. The CAREER award provides five years of funding and is given to assistant professors by the NSF directorates at different times during the year.

A team of scientists at Penn State, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and other institutions have developed a method for recreating a schizophrenic patient's own brain cells, which then can be studied safely and effectively in a Petri dish. The method brings researchers a step closer to understanding the biological underpinnings of schizophrenia. The method also is expected to be used to study other mysterious diseases such as autism and bipolar disorder, and the researchers hope that it will open the door to personalized medicine -- customized treatments for individual sufferers of a disease based on genetic and cellular information.

A team of researchers has used stem cells taken from the skin of patients with Rett syndrome -- the most physically disabling of the autism disorders -- to replicate autism in the lab and to study how the disease affects brain cells. The team's findings, to be published on Nov. 12 in the journal Cell, reveal disease-specific cellular defects, such as fewer functional connections between particular neurons, and demonstrate these defects are reversible. The results raise the hope that, one day, autism may become a treatable condition.

A study by scientists at Penn State provides new information about the genes that are involved in a mammal's early brain development, including those that contribute to neurological disorders. The study is the first to use high-throughput sequencing to uncover active genes in developing brains, and it is likely the best evidence thus far for the activity in the brain of such a large number of genes. The research results one day could lead to the development of drugs or gene therapies that treat neurological disorders such as autism and mental retardation.